Fall decorating is one of my favorite things to do! It can be so cheap and easy to decorate for the season. Here is a quick fall centerpiece idea I’ve used to spruce up my front porch!

Quick and Easy Fall Centerpiece

Mums are my go-to Fall decor piece. Hit a store sale at the right time and you can make adorable fall centerpieces on the cheap! They will usually come in these generic black pots. I bought a few for a party but I didn’t want to spend money on potting them so here is what I did to cover the black pots for a quick fix!

All you need is one paper bag per flower pot, some scissors and some twine, raffia, or ribbon.

Open up the paper bag and cut slits half way down the bag, around each side of the bag.

Fold the cut pieces down.

Stick the flower pot into the bag. Trim further down the bag if needed.

Wrap twine around the bag and tie in the front.

That’s it! It took me five minutes to make this as I scrambled to decorate for a fall party I hosted this month.

Not bad for five minutes, right?! You could take a couple more minutes and tear the edges of the bag for a more distressed look or even cut multiple slits for a fringe. Get creative!

I haven’t posted much about my love of scrapbooking here because I haven’t had the space to do much while living in this tiny apartment. I’m totally addicted to it! Once I start, I can’t stop. Just ask my husband. He calls scrapbooking an occult. Dramatic much, Honey??

I was super excited to hear about My Memories Suite because, OMG, I can scrapbook ON MY COMPUTER?! This is going to be fun! Nothing will replace my love for paper and glue and sparkly bling smooshed together, but when I want to get creative and can’t (or just don’t feel like) dragging all of that stuff out…digital scrapbooking to the rescue!

This is perfect for quick projects. You can pick a template, upload your pictures, and have it printed. It’s so easy! I loved that you can also add embellishments (my favorite part of scrapbooking). There are SO many options to use that I haven’t even tried them all yet.

-You can either pick from a library of templates or make your own. Want to be creative? Do it. Want to stick pictures in and be done while still having a cute album? Done!

-Add embellishments, shapes, different fonts…so many options.

-More than just pictures! You can upload videos and edit by adding music, text and more. Love that!

-Share your albums! There are options to save your albums and share with others, including printing them!

-Card making – Christmas cards for next year? So easy.

-Narrate your pages. Ok, this is cool. You can record yourself talking about each page and save your albums on a disc. So instead of browsing a paper album and reading the words, you can look at them on your computer or tv screen and listen to the narrations! That feels like such a fun George Jettson way to look at pictures! GREAT gift!

Here is a screen shot of one of the albums I’m working on right now…

So, of course, I’m going to share the fun with all of you! First off, please enjoy $10 off your purchase of My Memories Suite! Use coupon code STMMMS4969 to get $10 off instantly!

Once you receive your software, you will also receive an additional code for $10 off your next purchase at MyMemories.com!

BUT WAIT THERE’S MORE! Sorry. I know, but I had to…

One of you will win it for free! Just visit MyMemories.com and tell me what you see that you love the most! What’s your favorite kit, template or designer…and that’s it! You’re entered to win the My Memories Suite digital software!

Giveaway ends Thursday, February 23rd at midnight and the winner will be announced Friday!

Share the love by tweeting or facebooking about the giveaway for an extra entry! Just tell me you did so with a link in your comment.

Good luck!

*I was provided with a free copy of this software, however, all opinions are my own! I really do love this! I’m not a liar. 🙂

It’s an adorable candle wrap that she sells in her Etsy shop. I just love it! What a fun way to decorate a plain glass candle jar. AND she can monogram them to make them unique and personalized! My living room is blue and brown and snowmen are my favorite!

This is a perfect Christmas gift! I mean look at how cute this one is! They range from $7-$9. So great!

My mom being the sweet person she is offered to give one of her candle wraps to one of you! How much do we love Momma?!

Check out her Etsy shop Homespun Expressions and tell me which one you love and maybe you’ll win it!

One entry per person, please! Winner will be announced on Monday, December 5th!

I still haven’t dealt with the pile of artwork and papers that my kids brought home from school last year. Now we are starting back again and they will be bringing more home!

Here is the pile of artwork I have been begged to keep because every single piece is special:

While I do love keeping my kids artwork and keepsakes, I do not love the mess it creates. I like things to be organized and in my world everything has it’s own home. So I came up with a way to store and organize all of our favorite artwork, school papers and keepsakes.

Homemade Kids Keepsakes Organizer

This is really quick and easy to make, the kids can even help! Here is what you need:

Poster board
Hole Punch
Ribbon
Stickers and/or Markers

First fold the poster board in half.
Then punch holes down the two sides, leaving an open space at the top.

Starting at the bottom of the poster board, weave the ribbon in and out of the punched holes until you reach the top. Repeat on the other side.

Tie in a bow at the top. Tie it tightly!

Decorate with stickers if you like and label it with your child’s name and grade/age. This is a great job for the kids!

Done! Using the large size poster board makes the organizer big enough to hold large keepsakes without needing to fold them!

And, of course, it can fit small things as well. Do you remember this paper? I just had to keep that one!

The folded up poster board Kids Keepsake Organizer fits nicely right down into a plastic bin so you can stick them in there and line them up just like a neat and tidy little file box full of childhood memories.

If you don’t have much time, you are not crafty, you are lazy, or it is your second or third child who always get the shaft, you can use the super easy way:

Fold poster board in half:

Staple up the sides:

Write the kids name on the front with a sharpie:

Fill it up!

For now I have one bin with a folder for each kid but my goal is to have one bin for each kid filled with a folder for each grade. It will be so easy to look through and my table top will stay clean!

Boiling an egg sounds like it should be the easiest cooking skill out there, but it can be very tricky! After googling and testing, here are the tricks that I have found to get the best looking, easiest to peel hard boiled egg!

Cover eggs with cold water in a pot. Not too much water, just enough to cover the eggs well.

Place pot on a burner turned up to high heat. Once the water begins to boil (like a rolling boil), set a timer for 3 minutes.

When the timer goes off, quickly take the pot off the burner and cover with a tight lid. Set the timer for 8 minutes.

After 8 minutes, rinse the eggs off with cold water for a minute. Let the eggs soak in cold water for a few minutes to cool off. They peel best if you place in the fridge for about an hour.

I colored mine for a pretty Easter centerpiece. I wish I could tell you exactly how I got these lovely colors. I think it was just luck! But here’s what I did:

2/3 cups water, boiling
2 tbs vinegar (I used apple cider vinegar cause it’s all I had which I think helped make the colors so rich)
About 10 drops of food coloring. I used yellow, blue and green.
And I used brown eggs which definitely helps the colors to be more earthy.
Dip cooled, boiled eggs in colored water. I let mine sit in their for about 10-15 minutes.
Let dry on a paper towel.

I really do love this little reciept organizer and I make myself one every year. It’s quick and easy to make!

So here’s how I made it:

Supplies:
Envelopes (Either business size or regular, whatever you want! And enough for each person in your family or as many as you feel you need to stay organized!)
Glue stick
Ribbon
Marker or stickers

First, decide how you want to organize your receipts. I made an envelope for each person I would be buying for and then one extra one for miscellaneous. You can sort by person, by relationship (Kids, Aunts. Mom, Dad, etc) or by gift (electronics, clothing, toys) or even by store! Do what works for you but note that an odd number of envelopes works best.

Glue the envelopes together by gluing the inside flap of one envelope to the back of another.

Add your comment below to be entered for a chance to win free sample rolls to help with your upcoming holiday needs!

I’m a scrapbooker. I love the art of taking pieces of paper and my favorite pictures and turning them into pieces of art. I also love card making and prefer to make a card over buy one any day! I always use Scotch brand products for my scrapbooking and card making adhesives (and I’m not just saying that because they are sponsoring this post, I swear!)

With Thanksgiving come and gone and plenty of people to thank for a wonderful meal, I thought it would be fun to show you a quick and easy Thank You card that even a beginner can make. In fact, this card can be easily made by the kids too! You can change the colors and words as well very easily to make it appropriate for any occasion. A friend of mine made a thank you card like this for me a long time ago and ever since I use it as my go to template for a quick card.

So here is the end result:

Here are the directions typed right on the pictures below for easy follow along instructions!

Easy right?!

Now for some fun! Leave a comment to be entered to win a roll of Scotch Double Sided Tape from 3M! Simply tell me what your family uses tape for the most (and include your email address please!). You can enter once a day until December 3rd when I will select TEN WINNERS!!

It will only take a second to enter and you’ll be ready for gift wrapping! I’m really saving you about $50 here because you will inevitably be wrapping gifts and run out of tape. You will run to the store. You will leave with about $50 worth of stuff that you probably don’t need and you may even forget the tape! So just enter to win some here and we both win! 🙂